Google's Project Fi and Google Voice

[Sheffield_Steve]

Interesting article regarding Google's Project Fi (Phone service) with a lot of discussion on Google Voice and what they see as it's future.

http://www.theverge.com/2015/8/8/9118283/googles-project-fi-cell-phone-service-is-simple-until-its-not

[OzarkEdge]

Thanks for sharing that.

OE

[N2Wind]

I moved to Fi last week.  Where I live, the voice coverage was great and good quality on wifi.  The problem I had was where I live.  I am very rural and Verizon is pretty much the best provider.  I never got off of 3G except one time.  The good thing was that I canceled my account and ported my number back to Google Voice in less than 24 hours.

[dilmah]

Regarding GVoice and its potential shutdown: there is Ring.To which AFAIU can be used just as drop-in replacement for GVoice.

Regarding Fi: I switched to it from GVoice.  So far I have some complaints but not to a degree of cancelling service and switching to something else.

[SteveInWA]

There is no "potential shutdown" of Google Voice.  That article was poorly-written gossip, with no actual research.  Project Fi is just that, a mobile technology showcase "project".  It's run by an group at Google independent of GV, and they've collaborated with the Voice team to ensure that the services can coexist.

As the saying goes, "Nothing to see here, move along."

[dilmah]

>  It's run by an group at Google independent of GV

Fi runs as kind of a wrapper atop of GV.
For instance, account of Fi user at https://fi.google.com/account contains link to "old" interface of GV for Fi user.

And actually I've encontered at least one case (adding forwarding number in presence of other disabled forwarding numbers occupying all slots) when solving a problem for Fi user was possible only via old GV interface, and not via Fi interface.

[SteveInWA]

Fi runs as kind of a wrapper atop of GV.

No, it's a separate service with a separate design and separate purpose, and a small amount of overlap.  Fi and GV are designed for different purposes:  Fi is a hybrid cellular/WiFi mobile phone service, and GV is an inbound PSTN (VoIP landline) phone number with call forwarding and message management.  They both share some common infrastructure, but as you've found, the services can't fully be used in a merged way with each other, nor does one service perform many of the service of the other.

See this link for more details:  https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6159953?hl=en

[dilmah]

> See this link for more details:  https://support.google.com/fi/answer/6159953?hl=en

that's more details??
don't think so.